


Grey

by ElectriCura



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: A bit confusing to be honest, Betrayal, Enemies to Friends, Family Loss, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Imprisonment, Platonic Relationships, Sibling Rivalry, Villains, War, not cliche
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28608885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectriCura/pseuds/ElectriCura
Summary: Grey or gray is an intermediate colour between black and white. It is a neutral colour or achromatic colour, meaning literally that it is a colour "without colour", because it can be composed of black and white.*****All the people were like chess pieces to Steve. The ones who were good to him, did good deeds were the white pieces, pure good. The ones who were mean to him, did bad things, people who were twisted were the black ones. He had held this conviction close and true since childhood, which accounted for why he didn't have many friends. He could never seem to trust the black pieces.But one day, this changed. As if destiny wanted to wrong his beliefs.He met a piece he never thought to exist.He was like a broken bulb, his colour flickering from black to white and back again.broken as he was, he intrigued Steve. The more time he spent with him, the more he got to know what the truth was.And now, it was both of them against the entire world.And as time passed by, through the disarray inside of him, Steve saw a god in him.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Escape

Purple fingertips, clammy skin, a thundering heart and no blanket in winter, "What else could get worse?" He thought.  
The ebon cuff let go of his wrist with a soft click, burying itself in the folds of the Sherpa fleece blanket. The pain got worse, pulsing and throbbing in his wrist, creeping to his fingers and shoulder, but it was bearable, like always. 

He slipped the pin in the right cuff's lock which dropped onto the messy bed. He rotated his wrists that burned with the rare movement, but they moved. His fingers brushed over the bruises and cuts on his wrists. The hideous, purple-black bruises that bestrewed his wrists like a disease, with small red slits that looked yellow to him. like they were infected. But they weren't, he scowled, all thanks to those sickening syringes he was given every day. 

He got to his feet, stretching. A glass bottle slipped from his pocket and fell on the wooden floor. He had been saving its neck since weeks. the glass shattered like spoondrift over a shore. a little white pill lay on the floor amidst the splinters of glass. He held the pill in his hand, and without a second thought swallowed it whole. The ringing reduced, the loud silence filling his ears.

The grandfather clock, its aureate pendulum swung slowly from side to side, alluring him. The tick-tock of the grandfather clock was the only sound around.

A queer, sweet fragrance wandered to him, of flowers. Of funeral flowers. Of carnations or roses, maybe. He wasn't sure. Or it was more like-

Curtains flapped behind him. His head whipped to that direction, curls of hair falling over his face. "It's just the winds," he said to himself, "chill!"

It wouldn't be too long till the pill shows its complete effect. The forced sleep and the haze cleared away, but his senses were still nuts. Picking up noises and seeing things he-

Pages flapped beside him. Someone must be here. His eyes snapped at the table beside him. No one. The pages too moved because of the apathetic winds. 

Drops of sweat dawdled down his temple. Now the loudest sound wasn't the ticking clock or the flapping curtains, but his thundering heart. He pressed a palm to his chest, a futile attempt to calm himself down. His hands scrambled over the desk beside. Quills, papers, leather grazed his fingertips. a cold metal made contact with his skin and he stopped. Brass glinted under the light of the depressed moon. He yanked the drawer open with quivering hands. Two daggers lay there. Their blades a blood-red from rust. He cursed at himself and glared at the daggers. How dumb of him to keep such weak weapons. Nonetheless, he had no option. And, he spun the blade on the tip of his finger, it did look quite intimidating. Shoving the daggers into his belt, secured in straps, he staggered to the window and leapt down. He landed on the concrete without a single sound. 

Around him were daggers and swords, bows and arrows, armour and dust, all held up by weapon stands. he slunk through the hallway shrouded with shadows, with walls a burning crimson. the shadows looked down upon him, glaring at his small figure.

He tiptoed past the ornate vases and portraits, not bothering to look anywhere else other than ahead. A wooden floorboard under his foot creaked loud enough to echo. He froze, All his muscles were ready to fight or flee from whatever was to come. 

Not a single sound. not a single movement caught by him. So he continued. 

After a few more creeks he stood in front of two colossal metal doors. He drew his daggers out, holding them parallel to his jaws. Feet shuffled behind the doors, someone yawned. He peeked through the gap between the two doors of the secured vault. Two silhouettes of "plum" men, standing opposite to one another. one was further away from the door with a spear in his hands while the other, closer to him had a crossbow. 

He took a deep breath and pushed the doors open. The guard closest to him with the crossbow stared at him with a bug-eyed face. He loaded the crossbow but it was already too late. He swung his left hand, the butt of the dagger crashing into the guard's jaw, knocking him out. 

He curled his lip at the fallen guard. "That guy needs to work on his skills." The tip of his dagger pointed at the unconscious man, "who even hired him here?"

The other man gawked at him with an incredulous expression, pointing his spear at him with trembling hands.

He simpered at the guard, "You saw a ghost or something?" 

The guard screwed his mouth shut, raising the spear higher and closer to him. He held the daggers in front of his shoulders, in a defence-offence pose. The guard charged at him with the spear. He sidestepped and dodged the spear. his arm swung over the guard's throat, a blurred line of red liquid followed his dagger, and the second guard collapsed. both the daggers in one hand he wiped his bloody palm to his shirt, staining the cyan red.

"h...h" The guard gasped. he momentarily paused, glaring at the dying man. The scowl melted into a cold-blooded grin, with his head cocked to his side. he kneeled on a knee, holding the guard's collar, who was about twice his height and weight. His dagger rested over the guard's neck.

"He...his majesty...warn him.."

"Your majesty?" He let out an airy laugh. " What are you going to say to that half-witted slacker, huh?"  
  
"He..her-"  
The dagger sliced over his neck and he dropped dead.

The blood meandered from his fingertips to his elbow.  
He heard someone scream, scream in fear and agony. In his mind. That little part of him that was still a child, terrified of almost anything. That part of him he had abandoned long ago when everyone had abandoned him. He looked the other way, wiping his hand on his shirt. 

"No use crying over spilt milk" He muttered to himself while scavenging through the drawers and open lockers, "Get your crap together." 

His eye was caught by a faint glimmer in one of the open lockers at the corner. A dim ashen gleam. The locker's hinges moved open without a sound. His sword rested in, without any restrains or scratches. wish he was in the same state at that moment. 

His fingers drifted over the strong metal, a deathly dazzling white. His finger traced its edge, staining it crimson. The sword disappeared, purple particles flounced in its place. 

With that last task done, he could go now. Freedom. 

The exit was, according to him a level below his room. without wasting time, he slunk off to the staircase, skipping every alternate step, stumbling forward in the end. 

The hall, room whatever it was supposed to be was warmer that most of the places he had been. He gagged at the walls, a hideous maroon. Dark blue would have looked better. All the things still. Even the curtains and the frames had some mercy on him, shutting their mouths and not scaring him. 

In front of him were two doors, with an light coloured frame, casting shadows over the red door. Was his brother obsessed over red now? silly, He thought. 

He gaped at doors. Perhaps it really was this simple. And that he had been a coward for not trying before, or that hope was something that he hadn't seen for years. Whatever the reason is, it would have been better if he had tried earlier. By now he could have found at least a few of the Devices, which would have saved a couple of decades of work for him. He should have escaped before. His fingers lightly brushed over the door. So it was real. 

His doorway to freedom. He pushed the doors open. the creaked slightly. He heard footsteps close to him. Really close. A pair of strong arms grabbed his waist, dragging him back in. He tried to push the hands away, but he was too weak. His own voice drowned in the hundreds of shouting voices behind him. A needle poked his neck and he knew it was over. he could clearly hear another voice. The voice he had first heard when he was born. His world was consumed by black shadows. His escape was foiled. It was all over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be rewriting this due to poor quality...


	2. Captivity

_He smelt of warm grass. Grass and fresh mud. Golden rays of the summer sun heated his dark skin. His eyelids blinked nonchalantly, fluttering open and close till they adjusted to the ambience. Nothing stood in the way of the winds and him. The little glades of grass tickled his back through his shirt. There was purple verdure all around him, stretching till his eye could see. Elaborate rows of lavenders stretched for miles and miles, veiling the wet dirt underneath it. They all rose at once, overwhelming the horizon. The dainty lavenders tickled his palms. Puffs of sanguines and blues dawdled in the afternoon sky, bright to the eyes and warm to the skin, like a blooming fire._

It was all... very dream-like. The sun looked too tender, the sky looked too bright, the clouds looked too soft. Were they always like this? Or had he forgotten that? Or failed to ever notice it? 

__

The lavender swayed in the winds. The winds that whispered a hundred sweet words to him. Its somniferous fragrance lulling him to sleep. 

__

"Hero..." A disembodied voice cooed.

__

He rubbed his eyes. 

__

"Hero..."

__

There was no one around him. Not a soul. Just him and the lavenders. 

__

"Hero..." His hand brushed over his hip, his dagger was gone. 

__

"Trust him..."

__

He waited in silence, frozen like a historic statue. The voice didn't come back. The smile on his face was gone. He stood up, turning around and scanning the plain for someone, or something- if not a human. 

__

The ground shook. Soft tremors that made him stumble to catch his footing. The earth groaned from below. The sound of a little crack, he looked down. A small fissure, the length of his index finger starred up at him from between his feet. 

__

More sounds of cracking filled the air. Louder than his breathing, quickening with every new crack. 

__

The ground tore apart, quivering. He cursed under his breath, looking left and right once again to find something, but there was nothing. Perhaps he'll find something at the end of this lavender farm. He ran to towards the horizon. His legs did not feel tired anymore like they did last night when he needed them. The horizon did not end. He ran for a few more minutes, but it looked like he was back at where he started. There was no other option left but to run. But he wasn't going anywhere, just running in a loop like a hamster. 

__

Gravity pulled him. Gravity pulled him back. His feet slipped over the crumpled lavender shoots. The world was tilting. tilting to a vertical position. 

__

He lost his footing, falling chin-first on the ground. His body was being pulled back. He was being dragged by his ankles like that day, that day when- Focus!

__

He grabbed a fistful of the lavender shoots. He could not feel the ground under his torso. He hung from the ground, bumping into and away like a pendulum. 

__

He looked down, which was ahead a few minutes ago, trees and rocks, flowers and dirt poured like rain into an endless ink-black void which once was an afternoon sky.

__

The lavender that he had held for his dear life was moist, slippery. He looked down once again. His grip loosened.

__

He fell.

__

He fell. The winds screamed at him for his foolishness, louder than his screams and he felt himself fall. The feeling was too real... too real.

**__**

"trust him."

* * * 

His eyes snapped open. A soft gasp escaped his mouth. the adrenaline still overwhelmed his system, the feeling of falling still lingered. His body felt rigid, unable to move. He couldn't breathe. His nostrils sucked in air, but his lungs didn't fill up. His chest tight, unable to move because something pressed over him. His fingers moved. Dry fingers, palms that were moist from sweat. 

It felt too real. Too real to be a dream. 

He groaned, hugging the fleece blanket. He stared wide-eyed at the locked window. 

The sky was a bright shade of grey, veiled by a thin fog. silhouettes of trees visible through the fog. His legs still felt numb. But he was used to it. It would probably take some time for him to go back to normal. He hugged the blanket tighter, a ghostly feeling taking over his partially paralyzed body. 

Soles of boots thumped over the concrete floor of the hallway. Keys jingled behind him. A heavy lock fell with a loud thud. He lifted his head to see an about twelve soldiers circled him, clad in sturdy armour. 

"State your business... or whatever it is." He said.

"We're here to escort you to the lord, Your majesty" The tallest of them all with a golden carved on his chest plate said. 

Herobrine's head went deeper into the blankets.

"Can we, your majesty?" 

"Could you just shut up please?" His muffled voice yelled, "And do whatever crap you want to. I don't care about it anymore."

Chains clinked and they let go of the bolts attached to the walls. A dozen palms fiddled with the cuffs on his wrists. They uncuffed him, only to cuff him back. He inhaled sharply through clenched teeth when the same was done with his ankles. After this regular ritual, they all hauled him out of the bed. The world spun and his head felt like all the contents in it drained out. He swayed on his feet, slumping into one of the soldier's shoulder. The soldier flinched away from him, muttering something in a different language. Or was it English? They all held him upright from his shoulders. 

"Shall we, your majesty?"

He managed to give the man an impassive look, white eyes glaring. He blew some hair off his face, "After you, dolt."

* * *

He was close, he knew it. The walls painted in a sheeny golden, with more decoratives hung up and more portraits of oldies pulling long faces. The air smelt like too many perfumes of herbs and flowers. Which flower was it, he didn't know, but one thing he knew was that the flower was horrible. Even in such a bad state, he could still sense the god's power. Strong. Dominating. Selfish. 

After a few steps, two grand doors opened to a wearisome-feeling room. The windows were shut and cloaked by light blue satin curtains. A brown couch, a lighter variant of the darker brown walls slouched in the corner. He always felt like puking near the walls, all of them painted odd colours. Ahead of him a table and a chair sat in the very centre of the room, adorned with crumpled papers and broken quills. A person perched on top of the table, his back turned to him. 

All the soldiers bowed to the man with the golden cape. A guard shoved Hero's head down but he recoiled away from the guard. 

"I don't bow to cowards." 

He had said it like it was a fact, a truth but he knew just how many cowards he had bowed to before. 

The lord looked at him from the corner of his eye, still turned away. 

"And I was thinking I might have disciplined you by now." 

Hero chuckled deeply, "You? Discipline? Me?" He scoffed, "How would a slackard like you manage to do such a feat, I wonder. Besides you're just too engrossed in yourself, just too busy to look at anyone."

"Well, I am busy, you see." The lord got off the table. On one mere gesture, the soldiers around him pushed his shoulders down. Without the energy to resist, he was forced to a kneeling position, "I'm busy in making sure there aren't egostics like you roaming around in my world."

"My world?" Hero said, "Wow Notch! If my hand were free, I would have clapped for you." 

"If I were in your place," a dagger plopped to existence in Notch's hand, "I'd keep that mouth under control. And you know how I am when I lose my temper, right?"

Hero's lips set in a grim line, his shoulder slopped. 

"Only you do, and it's good you haven't forgotten that." A smile dangled on the corner of Notch's lips. He strolled to the window, pushing the curtain away from his pinkie. 

"I visited my library yesterday, to find an archive missing."

Herobrine pouted, his head cocked to his right. "Oh. How sad."

Notch gave him an annoyed look  
"Where is it?"

Herobrine's mouth set in a hard line, "I don't know where it is. So if my work here is-"

"You are asked something, just answer it! " General Kaegar spat at him, kicking him hard with his foot.

Hero's cry was broken as he bit his lip, crashing down on the carpet. Pain shit from his abdomen to the rest of his body. His stomach couldn't handle this anymore. He tasted the spice of the little dinner he had the day before yesterday, a foul taste that he couldn't help but gag at. He just wanted the pain to go away, to leave him alone for once. It was like the pain had become a part of him, never letting go of him. 

"General Kaegar, I did not ask you to do that." His older brother hissed. 

He groaned. It was a sickness, a lifelong disease. 

"My Lord, he wasn't answering your question, he deserved it." 

He took in a shaky breath. He tried to wriggle his hands off the cuffs, to stop himself from throwing up, but the cuffs held both his hands tightly, clinking at his feeble try.

"Captain Alistar, call the medic," Notch said. 

"My Lord, he's a prisoner" Kaegar whispered, "you can't. And he's..." 

There was silence for a while.

"Help him up," Notch said. 

The guards around him helped him up. He was on his knees again, barely managing to not writhe. 

"S..stay away from me you buffoon. " 

General Kaegar flinched at that, but a stern look from Notch and he stepped away from Hero. All the people around Hero starred at him with grave faces. 

"The main reason I got you here is-"

"The archive is on my desk, by the way. You can send one of your pawns to get it back."

"The main reason why I got you here," Notch spoke louder, "is to let you know that I'm letting you go now. " 

"Pardon?" 

"You can go now" 

Notch sat in the table once again, facing him. He looked at the floor in dismay, "You see, you've been a burden on me for a long time. So rather than keeping you here and wasting my resources on you, it would've been better to get rid of you. So here I am, getting rid of you." 

"Umm," He pressed his lips together, "sounds good to me, good maybe. Not that I am suggesting that I am pleased with that, or something, but it is nice, no like-"

Notch winced, "I get it, now shut up please."

Notch was letting him go. Finally. Guess what he did last night must have gotten into Notch's nerves. Now he was free. He couldn't even start thinking about what he would do once he was out. Of course, he had one main work left to do, but apart-

Notch was letting him go?

He glimpsed at Notch. A sweet little smile on his face, the one he would give Hero when they were little when he had something else in mind...

"What do you want?"

"What? What do you mean what do you want?"

"No, I was wondering if you wanted something from me, or wanted me to do some of your dirty work, now that you are letting me go."

His older brother let out an airy laugh, scrunched eyes looking up at the ceiling. Show-off.

"My little brother," Notch's hand gestured at him, addressing the others in the room, "sceptical as always."

He got off the table, "I'd say you're wrong." 

He stood tall over Hero, who's stiff neck stung to move. "How about I ask you a question, brother." Notch power felt more dominating. It pressed his shoulders down, and surrounded him, managing to smother him. He squirmed in his place. 

"Are you, still afraid of me?"

Herobrine inhaled a sharp breath. His neck couldn't take it anymore, his head drooped down. His palms felt sweaty. He moved his fingers, but they could do nothing to quell the turmoil inside his body. 

Notch's warm breath grazed his nape. He shuddered, flinching away. He couldn't.

"Herobrine," Notch whispered, "I raised you all by myself since the day you were born, I know every ounce of you. I know every trick up your sleeve. So don't try to act smart with me."

His eyelids felt heavy, the antidote was wearing away. 

"And admit it, you're scared of me. You always have been. You're younger to me, weaker than me and you'll always be the same. Weak. Good-for-nothing."

"No" He whimpered.

Notch stood in front of him and lifted Hero's chin. 

"Yes." He growled. "So stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours. Because if you crossways with me once again then you wouldn't imagine-" 

The god moved away from him, "This time, I-I don't want to see you ever again. I'll lose control and you'll-you'll. I don't want to- "

Notch turned his back to him. 

"Please escort him to the exit, general Kaegar." His brittle voice ordered. 

Herobrine was softly lifted from his place, eyes wide and body stiff. Notch's words kept echoing in his mind."I'll lose control and you'll-". 

__

"Am I scared of him?" he asked himself

__

"Yes..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually I won't be updating till March 2021 due to personal reasons... So yeah. This isn't the end.


End file.
